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FIGURES FOUNDED ON RESEMBLANCE.
SECTION I. FIGURES FOUNDED ON RESEMBLANCE. Figures founded on resemblance may be divided into two main classes : (1) those in which the resem¬blance is stated; and (2) those in which the resem¬blance is implied. In the first division falls SIMILE, which explicitly states the resemblance.* In the sec * Dr. Campbell's distinction between Simile and Comparison Is of small practical value. He says : "The difference is this: Simile is no more than a comparison suggested in a word cm ond are METAPHOR, in which the implied resemblance is so vividly conceived as to be taken for identity ; PER¬cONIFICATION, in which the resemblance of an inanimate object to a person is so forcibly felt as to be assumed • snd ALLEGORY, in which the resemblance is made to extend to a number of details. These figures will now be considered in separate divisions. L SIMILE. 1. Forme of Simile. Simile assumes four forms, i. e., it may be founded on (1) direct resemblance ; (2) resemblance of causes ; (8) resemblance of effects; or (4) resemblance of ratios. (1) Direot Itosomblanoe.—Direct resemblance, contrary to a natural presupposition, is the least com¬mon and the least useful of the four kinds of simile. The reason of this is, that, in order to assist the mind in forming a conception, the objects compared must belong to different classes ; but, if of different classes, they are likely to have no direct similitude. This is not always so. Tennyson thus describes a miller: "Him, like the working bee in blossom dust, Blanched with his mill, they found." Here there is a direct resemblance between blossom dust and the flour on the miller's clothing, yet the two objects compared belong to different classes. (2) Rambla= of Cansoo.—The resemblance two. Comparison is a simile circumstantiated and included in one or more separate sentences."—Phaosophy of Rhetoric. of causes is more common than the direct resemblance. An illustration is furnished by Dryden "I scarcely understand my own intent ; Bat, silk-worm like, so long within have wroaght That I am lost in my own web of thought." If we inquire of what resemblance is here predi¬cated, the answer is, not of the poet and a silk-worm, for there is no resemblance between them, but of the internal process of both poet and silk-worm. A mode of intellectual life is compared to a mode of insect life, in order to show a resemblance between the cause of the poet's bewilderment and the cause of the insect's entanglement. As the internal operations of the in¬sect result in its own entanglement, so the reflections of the poet result in his bewilderment. (3) Resemblance of Effects.—Nothing is more evident than that widely different objects may produce similar effects upon the mind. Few things are more unlike in themselves than painting and poetry, stat¬uary and music, yet we often hear allusions to " word- painting," and hear statuary defined as "marble music." All art has a common basis. "The fountain from which all the fine arts flow is precisely the same. It is the power of creating in our own minds images of beauty or sublimity." Hence the resemblance of effects is a fertile source of simile. Mr. Longfellow's simile in the following lines has been criticised as "far¬fetched :" "The day is done, and the darkness Falls from the wing of night, As a feather is wafted downward From an eagle in his flight" If every simile must be a configuration, this may be faulty, but that is an assumption wholly without proof. The poet wishes to convey the idea of the gentle and silent descent of darkness, and in the whole realm of imagery he could not have chosen a more appropriate emblem of combined gentleness and silence of move¬ment than the falling feather. The effect of approach¬ing darkness and the effect of a falling feather, to the mind, are similar from the fact that they produce in the mind similar emotions. (4) Resemblance of Patios.—The greatest num¬ber of similes are based upon analogy, or the re¬semblance of ratios. Similes of this class are of great value to expression. If an object, cause or effect may be likened directly to something else, it must be some¬what simple by nature, and hence easily understood without comparison. Similes based on analogy, in¬volving a similarity not of things but of relations, must contribute more to rendering the general and abstract comprehensible. In figures of this kind direct resem¬blance may be wholly wanting. Thus there is no like¬ness between a man and fruit on a tree, or a clock, yet Dryden very forcibly says : Of no distemper, of no blast he died, but fell like autumn fruit that mellowed long, E'en wondered at because he dropped no sooner. Fate seemed to wind him up for four-score years, Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more, Till, like a clock worn out with eating time, The wheels of weary life at last stood still." Here the comparison is not between things, .7 lit .3e¬tween relations. The following from Burns demonstrates that a sim ile does not necessarily imply any direct resemblance of things, or more than a single point of resemblance between relations, since pleasures are happily compared to several objects between which there is no similitude and only one common property,—evanescence • Ah I pleasures are like poppies spread— You seize the flower, the bloom is ailed; Or like the borealis' race, That flit ere you can point their place ; Or like the snow-flakes on the river, A moment white—then dark forever ; Or like the rainbow's lovely form, Evanishing amid the storm." Indeed, the most attenuated resemblances between things affect us most agreeably, if there be a real resemblance between their relations. Thus Shelley ventures to the Ultima Thule of similitude for this exquisite simile : "Our boat is asleep on Terchio's stream ; Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream." Comparison is pictorial speech. It serves the same purpose in language that pictures do in books. Every one feels that he derives a clearer idea of any thing from a picture, or even from a rude diagram, than from words alone. By presenting two objects to the mind at once, and affirming a likeness between their causes, effects, or relations, an abstract thought becomes clear through the concrete image, 2. Laws of Simile. Although interpreting power is economized by the use of comparison, the utility of it depends upon some special laws. (1) Similar Objeots.—There is evidently no econ¬omy when the resemblance is found between exactly similar objects or acts. Thus in Pope's Homer, one fight is compared to another : "Nor could the Greeks repel the Lyeian powers, Nor the bold, Lycians force the Grecian towers. As, on the confines of adjoining grounds, Two stubborn swains with blows dispute their bounds; They tug, they sweat ; but neither gain nor yield, One foot, one inch, of the contended field." If such a comparison has any justification, it is, that the complex is made simple by making the general fight an individual combat. (2) Vague Reeemblanon.—There is no economy when the resemblance is vague. Quintillion, speaking of comparison, says "In this kind of figure it is especially important to guard against that which we use for the sake of a comparison being either obscure or unknown; for that which is used to illustrate some¬thing else should itself be plainer than that which it illustrates." * Mrs. Browning, usually so felicitous in her choice of figures, writes : "Then the bitter sea Inexorably pushed between us both; And sweeping up the ship with my despair, Threw us out as a pasture to the stars." Of this Peter Bayne justly says : "No Ossianic juvenile ever perpetrated purer non¬sense. What possible resemblance there can be between .1 ship and a pasture ; why and when stars go out to grass ; and wherefore having so gone, they should feed on ships and young ladies,—these are questions of in¬soluble mystery." * (3) simpler objecte.—It is plain that simile most economizes mental power when it compares the com¬plex to the simple, the mental to the physical. Aris¬totle t cites Plato's comparison of the populace to "a pilot strong, but rather deaf." Here the complex idea of the power and folly of a mob is reduced to a simple one under the figure of a single person guiding a vessel, strong enough to move it at his will, but deaf to the sound of breakers and of warning. The sacrifice of one's self for the benefit of others, and the gradual loss of strength in their service, is a moral conception some¬what complex in its nature; but Antisthenes beautifully concreted it into a picture when he likened Cephisido¬tus the slim to frankincense, for "in its consumption it spreads universal delight." (4) The Position of Parts in a Simile.—The posi¬tion of parts in a simile is important to its effect. Both Aristotle and Quintilian overlook this. The former says nothing on the subject, while the latter gives no principle as a guide, simply declaring that the illus¬trated or the illustrative member may come first, as circumstances direct./ Mr. Spencer has enunciated a valuable law for the position of the parts of a simile. "As whatever qualifies should precede whatever is qualified, force will generally be gained by placing the simile {illustrative member] before the object to which is applied. That this arrangement is the best, may be seen in the following passage from the Lady of the Lake :' ' As wreath of snow, on mountain breast, Slides from the rock that gave it rest, Poor Ellen glided from her stay, And at the monarch's feet she lay,' "Inverting these couplets will be found to diminish the effect considerably. There are cases, however, even where the simile is a simple one, in which it may with advantage be placed last ; as in these lines from Alexander Smith's Life Drama :' ' I see the future stretch All dark and barren as a rainy sea.' "The reason for this seems to be, that so abstract an idea as that attaching to the word 'future,' does not present itself to the mind in any definite form ; and hence the subsequent arrival at the simile member entails no reconstruction of the thought. "Such, however, are not the only cases in which this order is the more forcible. As the advantage of put¬ting the simile before the object depends on its being carried forward in the mind to assist in forming an image of the object ; it must happen that if, from length or complexity, it cannot be so carried forward, the advantage is not gained. The annexed sonnet from Coleridge is defective from this cause : 'As when a child, on some long winter's night, Affrighted, clinging to its grandam's knees, With eager wond'ring and perturb'd delight Listens strange tales of fearful dark decrees, Muttered to wretch by necromantic spell ; Or of those hags who at the witching time Of murky midnight, ride the air sublime, And mingle foul embrace with fiends of hell ; Cold horror drinks its blood I Anon the tear More gentle starts, to hear the beldame tell Of pretty babes, that loved each other dear, Murdered by cruel uncle's mandate fell : Ev'n such the shiv'ring joys thy tones impart, Ev'n no, thou, Siddons, meltest my sad heart.' "Here, from the lapse of time and accumulation of circumstances, the first part of the comparison is for¬gotten before its application is reached ; and requires re-reading. Had the main idea been first mentioned, less effort would have been required to retain it, and to modify the conception of it into harmony with the comparison, than to remember the comparison and re¬fer back to its successive features for help in forming the final image." II. METAPHOR. III. PERSONIFICATION. IV. ALLEGORY.